Mandy, I'm so glad you decided to take the trip! I think it'll be a great time for ALL of you!

Cute pics!!

Anna, congrats on the job! Hopefully when we move back home I'll get that "few hours away" to do Stampin' Up workshops (I need customers, first! :LOL). It really is SO nice to come back to the kids after being gone for just a little while!

Well, Iain's officially moving forward more than backward! He has now conquered the sea turtle finger puppet and moved on to the orange and blue striped sock. :LOL Uh-oh, he's found a Signing Time DVD case that big brother left out... Gotta rescue that...

I guess this is a brief one! Gotta get the big boy in bed for a nap. He's already tried to put cheerios in Iain's mouth (which I've let him play with but he's never tried to eat) and thrown a fit about being in timeout, going potty, etc. So...

I'm geraniumed out!!!! Spent about 5 hours in the last two days in close intimate contact with geraniums, my least favorite flower. I've been picking the dead leaves and blooms off of geranium plants (deadheading) And i'm going back again tomorrow for 4 more hours...... I wonder what I'll be doing????? geraniums maybe?

Actually I didn't really mind, I found myself in "the zone". "The zone" is the feeling that comes from familiar work done by hand that doesn't really involved the brain.... just repetitive simple actions. I found my mind wandering all sorts of directions. Very relaxing.

I now have a new place to get online at!!! My mom's house is hooked up now and I'm here a lot. I am hoping this means I'll be able to post more often! If I can get my stepdad to get off the computer... he's currently addicted to playing a game called "World of Warcraft", anyone else has an addict waiting in the wings to kill monsters???

I was thinking about Mothers Day... anyone find themselves ready to make a big deal out of their mother, now that they are one themselves???? I really want to do something special for her, she's done so much for me and I love her so much. I think I'm gonna get her a plant from the greenhouse, she always drools over hanging Fuschia plants, they have big luscious flowers and she never wants to spend the money on them! I really hope the dandelions go crazy in the next week, it's a tradition that we bring her them on Mother's Day, and I want to take photos with Mielle and I in a bunch of dandelions to give her (and have for myself) Time to start the tradition with Mielle!!!
I'm also wondering what, if anything Jerome and Mielle will do for me on Mothers Day...... He blew it big time last year.... actually had the gall to tell me I wasn't a mother yet and that it is the child's job to do something for the mom!!!!!!!! I got him back really good on Fathers Day when I presented him with a handmade card from our unborn child. He was so shamed! Te he heee! He better get it together this year!

Well I miss my baby today, spent too many hours away from her at work, I want to go snuggle her, so.... Later, everyone!

Anna Banana ~5 year old daughter ~3 year old son one angel baby and expecting July 2010

I hear you about the geraniums, they are not my favorite either. But I was at the Seattle home and garden show and there was a plant booth that had rare and specialty geraniums. There is a type called a Mabel Grey that smells like lemon drops. You rub the leaf and the whole room smells like lemons! It is the most wonderful plant and since then have been an addict to my *lemon plant* you should find out if they can get one for you because kids love them.

Aidan never had a binkie or lovie, but when he was in the hospital last spring Hans bought him a stuffed dog and he sometimes attaches himself to it. Also his little baby too. I give Bryn a pacifier when he naps because I can spend one on one time with Aidan.

I would love to do more for Mother's Day, but our mothers are never nearby.

Matt missed my birthday this year; I'm curious what he'll do for MD. Though he DID bring home flowers tonight!

Hey, we went swimming today! (Actually, the babies and I went splashing and Nicolas went wading, to be precise.) See our water slinging : pictures in the slinging and nursing album in my siggie (pictures 17 and 18). Excuse the wild hair; I had it up all morning and took it down to go into the water. Not that I got to get my head wet, but it was out of habit. The babies did great! Quite cute. Now, like a bad mommy, I've put them to bed with residual suntan lotion AND chlorine still on their skin. We had a really odd, busy night. I guess it will be bath day tomorrow.

I should totally be working right now, but it's been a while since I posted and I wanted to check in real quick. I've been loving all the pics! Such cute babies!

I went to a mom's night out last night with the local AP group and had a good time with Jackson in tow. Nice to see other mamas face to face! I just wish that I could get to the gatherings more often.

Lovies: Jackson does have one. It's a satin and flannel store bought lovey about 24" square. He loves to rub it against his face or suck on it. Only it's been washed so many times that it's already falling apart.

Work was going slow on Wednesday, so I finally set up the sewing machine and made a mei-tai type carrier. It's functional and pretty for a first attempt, but there's much room for improvement. The straps are way too long. With any luck, maybe I'll get some time for a second attempt in the next month or so! I'll try to post pics of it later on.

Jackson has started doing Tristan's trick, waking up 5-6 ish in the morning all ready to start his day, and then wham, come 7ish, he's tired and falls back to sleep again. So now, I'm the only crazy one awake here. Oh, but it would work to my advantage if I could find the motivation to get started with work. Sigh. Oh, but I don't want to work and I'd much rather curl up in my bed and sleep!

Okay, enough complaining, must get to work. My grandparents are down from Indiana tonight and aren't very understanding about silly things like work and studying for finals (dh is studying for his very last set of finals and graduates in a couple of weeks).

I am not shy about telling DH what I want as gifts for various holidays/occasions. I told him that I want a joint mama's day, anniversary, birthday gift of new pots and pans. Well, yesterday, we went out and I got a set of Calphalon pans! With the pans came bonus gifts, so I was able to get another pan (multi-pot) and two new knives! I am so psyched!

Tristan has a square of silk he's quite attached to, as well as a knot doll that I made. He prefers to chew on the doll's hands, but I frequently find him asleep holding the silk to his face, clenched tightly in both fists. Very sweet...

And we read to Tristan frequently. I *finally* have found some German board books. I have plenty of German kids' books, but he could take those pages apart in seconds if given the chance. Hooray for eBay, I've found them fairly cheap. Reading to him calms him down a lot. It's also part of our bedtime routine - Jo reads him up to 5(!) books - Time for Bed, Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Gorilla, Mr. Brown can Moo (can you?), some Boynton books - before I nurse him to sleep. We both grew up in households where books were much important to us than toys... and both of our moms saved most of our kids' books, so Tristan's got a full bookshelf already!

Mandy, enjoy your weekend to the fullest!

Gosh, i wonder if we're ever going to make it to the co-op, or if Tristan's going to sleep all afternoon...?

Okay, finally have some time to write. MIL stayed an extra 2 days - she just didn't want to leave! Which was fine by me. She helped out a TON!!! We had a babyfood making festival. She made her own baby food for dh and SIL when they were babies - so she offered to help me stock my freezer and of course I said 'Go for it!'. She brought a ton of clothes that she had bought down in S. Florida (where she lives) for ds and even funded a fluff purchase - yeah!!! We also did some clothes shopping for me - which was fabulous. I have a hard time spending money on myself and she to shop so of course, again, I did not refuse. I lost so much weight b/c of dietary restrictions b/c ds sensitivites that all my pre-preggo clothes were too loose on me. I was wearing them, but looked very schleppy. I guess MIL felt bad and wantd to help me look like a hip young mama! :LOL So now I have clothes that fit well and look pretty dern good if I don't say so myself!
Ds is still not too much into crawling - I swear he's just gonna get up one of these days and just start walking! He loves observing EVERYTHING! This child just absorbs his environment! He loves going out and just looking everywhere. He's not too much of a talker - every now and then he'll go "baabaa".
We just got pricing on a new townhome community we've been looking into. It's less than we thought - which is good, but we are just struggling with whether we want a single family home instead. It would be nice to have new construction - get to pick everything out, you know that nothing 'bad' happened to the place, etc...but a single family home would be bigger and have a backyard, etc...We need to weigh the pros/cons. We've been searching for single family homes but the market is fairly slow here - so it seems like the townhouse is more concrete of an option.
Okay - enough of my ramblings. Oh yeah - 1 more thing I wanted to mention. I met up with a local mama who very graciously let me check out her sling collection and diaper stash. She has an Elbee and I was just dying to see one b/c of all the hype. All I can say is I was not at all impressed by it. Sure, it was nice but it was not anymore super fantastic than some other great WAHM dipes out there. Now I feel better that I am not missing out on something. :LOL
Have a great weekend!!!

While G is laying down and Iain is happily sitting on the table with me here, I thought I'd post really quickly!

Jen, I got an awesome package today! Thank you so much!! It all looks great - I can't believe we've got our first Hanna now! I absolutely the blue striped zipper! It's *perfect!!* Gabriel saw the animal zipper and said, "It's too big!" and I looked down to see the tag about washing a few times to get it to size! Too funny. The t-shirts are gonna be awesome this summer with his dipes. Yay! I can't wait to show DH.

We also got a couple of custom dipes today - Bottombumpers dip dye fitteds that DH stalked for me. (He's a good man! ) One is rather raspberry-ish, though. so it may end up on the TP at cost! But the other is blue and yellow and I love it! Plus we got some Haba toys and the new Mac OS X Tiger today - it's been a good delivery day.

Mama Bear, good luck with your decisions on a house! I know how hard that is. Right now, we're dealing with repairs that are going to be necessary on the house we're trying to buy. I just keep thinking how nice it would be to have a new build! But, for us, the new build would not only be much more expensive, but not in the area we want. (This house happens to be in the *perfect* area, which isn't that big!) I hope you can find something you really love!! Oh, and the thing with el bees is the FIT! WOW! I have three now and they're an awesome fit! Really well made, too. Not incredible to look at otherwise, though. :LOL

Iain has a really soft blankie with satin edging that we gave him for Christmas. We got out of the habit of giving it to him to sleep with, but I gave it to him again last night. He chewed on it happily a couple of times and then smiled and slept. (This was, of course, after nursing, too! Used to be I could put him down without nursing to sleep..ah, well...) Gabriel has never had anything he was attached to (besides me! and my hair!), but I think we will encourage Iain to enjoy his blankie.

now nak...

zen-ozz, congrats on the pans! Yay! That sounds awesome! Good pans can make such a difference!

Savannah, looks like you guys had fun! I had to :LOL about being a bad mommy. I always had a hard time with Gabriel giving him a bath AFTER swimming. We'd all be so tired, we'd just go home and sleep! If we get this new place, maybe I'll just hose 'em off after we swim. :LOL

Well, DH is home now and G is still not asleep. Guess I better run! Have a good evening (though it's probably night most places now!), mamas!

Isn't it crazy that we're going to be mothers on Mother's Day this year?? I just can't get over it! :

Dh left tonight to go to Memphis for the weekend. We own a townhome there with some bad tenants that are being evicted this weekend and then we're putting it on the market. Pretty stressful for him, and me too, cause I never sleep well when he's away from home. I also have most of the puppies being picked up by their buyers this weekend. The first one left today. I was a little sad!

Alex has learned two days ago how to roll ALL OVER THE HOUSE. He can army crawl a bit, but since he figured out the rolling thing I'm going to have to start baby-proofing because he's into everything! He also said "Mommy" for the first time today. He'd been saying "Mama" for awhile, but it was the first time he got the "eee" on the end of it - it was so cute. We went to JC Penney portrait studio today to get a picture of him taken as a Mother's Day gift for my Mom and MIL. Alex wasn't smiling much though, I think the lady taking the pictures scared him a little. We did get a good one after a lot of effort, but it won't be ready till the 23rd. WTH?

Speaking of dog water dishes, Maggie drank a whole bowl tonight and slobbered it all over the kitchen floor and I slipped in it and seriously hurt my back. I majorly hyper-extended myself trying not to go down. Boy does it hurt.

Stacy, what a beautiful family you have! I remember seeing one of those of the three of you - they are really gorgeous pics! Alex is so cute! He's got some really intense looks. And oh my goodness those puppies are cute! Almost cute enough to convince me I'd want a dog. :LOL I hope your back is okay! Eek!! Take it easy this weekend!

Off to try some stamping while the boys are (hopefully) sleeping... Tomorrow we're planning to go to Fresno for a Baby Fest there with lots of AP stuff. They're supposed to have a baby carrier fashion show! I can't wait.

Okay, it's 2 am... I can't quite commiserate with those of you whose babes are waking up at 5 or 6... but mine won't go to sleep!! He's very tired, but right now he's perfectly happy to be awake and play. : So, he's in his super-stuffed night time diaper, his ADORABLE new striped Hanna zipper , and he's sitting on the floor playing with books and talking happily. And we have to leave the house at 7. And his brother doesn't want to sleep because he "needs me." And I have things to do but what do you do with a baby who needs to sleep but won't? After you've nursed them until there's nothing left (or close enough), bounced 'em, given them a pacifier, a finger to suck, a blankie to hold, played white noise, had it completely dark... and they're still awake? Ugh.

I'm thinking of putting him in his high chair and taking him into the bathroom so I can get a shower. I need one before we go to the Baby Fest tomorrow and it doesn't look like I'm getting sleep. Of course, now the big boy is in my bed, so I can't shower in my own bathroom. Ugh.

Heather, I hope you got some sleep! And ouch, Stacy, I hope your back feels better today!

Those puppy pictures are so sweet. I want one, LOL. To add to the dog, cat, bird, and three fish we already have...

Alex is so cute. I also love that picture in the jumper, and the tummy ones in his cloth diaper.

I wish I had remembered to leave the babies slung after swimming so we could just walk straight into the shower in the changing room. Note for next time.

Last night was out of kilter and I ended up putting the babies to sleep in regular diapers and a tee shirt, instead of their regular PJs and fat diaper. So when they woke up a few hours later, I had to redo the diaper and put on the PJs... Well McKenna woke up first, and while I was changing her in the living room across the house, I guess William woke up too. He started crying but I had the pillow/blanket barrier set up and I knew I'd get to him in a minute.

Then all of a sudden his cries were REALLY LOUD. Then I noticed they seemed closer... When I went back there to check on him, he was crawling out the bedroom door and starting into the hallway!!!! He managed to crawl off the bed for the first time. That must have hurt. But lucky for him, we are slobs, and we never finished putting away the futon mattress that we were going to stuff under our bed, so it's bunched up right beside the bed on the floor (those boogers are HEAVY and unwieldy!) and he most likely tumbled onto that. Anyway, he didn't act or look hurt; in fact, he seemed pretty pleased with himself. We had to laugh.

I have a nasty cold, but nobody else has caught it from me, thankfully. I got some rest last night, so today I can go to the National Scrapbooking Day crop that starts in 5 minutes near my house. See ya!

Anna, I used to work at a greenhouse. I love the deadheading "zone". Just remember, geraniums are better to deadhead than petunias, they're not as sticky. It is also a great upper body workout when you start moving flats around. Have fun!

Lovie: Nothing yet. I've offerend him all the different teddies we've been given, but nothing has stuck. He had an elephant he really liked, but it's gone missing! It was attatched to his stroller by a bunch of rings, but one of the random babysitting people last week must have let it fall off, becuase it's gone now. I was a blankie girl, though, so he might have one yet.

Books: Andrew LOVES books! If he's fussy or tired and I"m not around DH can read to him for 15 min. They both lie on their backs and dh holds up the books and reads them, and Andrew looks at the books and bangs his feet when he gets excited. I didn't think he would like them, so I didn't try until he was about 4 mos old, but reading was an instant hit. His favorite book is "Things that Go". It has pictures of snoopy driving a variety of . .. well, things that go (bikes, rocket ships, busses, etc). He also has a favorite chewing book that I give him in church so he doesn't grab at my hymn book and prayer book. :LOL

Mother's Day: I reminded dh yesterday that it was mother's day. He was, like "oh yeah." I told him he could send me for a manicure or pedicure. I have a bunch of video on super 8 tape that I"m going to transfer and send to the grandmas for Mother's day. I just have to get a cord that works.

Ach! My video camera just ate the tape of Andrew in Feb and March! WHat makes it worse is that my photographic camera moved the film through the reels but didn't actually take any pictures in Dec, Jan, or Feb. So I now have NO documentation of Andrew from 3 mos - 5 mos! NONE! All we have since then is the tape from mid-feb. on (which I don't DARe put back in the video camera) and some crappy pictures I've taken on disposable cameras! I am so upset.
I mean, it could be a lot worse. My baby is safe and sound and happy. But right now it feels like the end of the world.

My techno-geek partner says that some places can rescue parts of the videotape; you may want to look into that. Also, if you know someone who is a media librarian they may be able to splice the videotape for you (her mom is one, and she's done it).

Jill~ How frustrating. Just another reminder that sometimes technology can really suck. We have a computer that we can't start and all our photos of me preggo and on are on it and I can't get them. We also lost a bunch of cds that we put years of pics on. We gave copies to my FIL so now I have to try and get copies from him. I'm right there with you though.

Jen~ Just got my package The star one makes me wish it were fall soon, and I have a used green striped with red cuffs, so having the red striped one will be perfect for winter. Thank You!

Yesterday evening Han's work had their big pot luck/bbq awards banquet for all the racers, parents and coaches, it filled an entire high school gym. It was nice to get out and see all the parents I haven't been able to see since I can't be on the mountain with both boys. I had to get up stinking early this morning though because I had a client claim that he emailed me this week to clean out his vacation rental, but he didn't. : The people came in last night and he asked me yesterday how it went. I had to go out there this morning and appologize profusely to the renters that they came to their vacation rental that had dirty sheets on the bed etc.. even though it wan't my fault I bought them a really expensive bottle of Pino Noir (sp) and I don't drink so that was strange to buy alchohol. They were nice about it though. I'm just nervous about this work schedule that advertising has created because I can't pump enough in time for these last min. jobs. I don't know if I should start taking him with me? Hans thinks it would be cheaper to get an employee instead of getting a sitter for the summer. I would be really nervous having someone in charge of my baby, but it's so stressful having someone else working for you with your name attached. KWIM? Anyway, sorry I'm rambling.
Bryn had a tooth cut, I think. He won't let me stick my finger in there to check, but I saw a whitish gey spot surounded by white gums. What a grumpasaurus rex

Oh, Jill, how awful! That's one of the worst kinds of losses to me, even though I know I still have the memories... it just hurts to feel like I've lost part of my child.. or at least his childhood. Hopefully Jen's suggestions will work!

Also, for the PP who can't get to pics on a computer - take out the HD and put it in a computer that works! It's pretty easy - you can ask at a computer shop or look up directions online. I used to swap HDs on my old Macs all the time.

If you have a lot of photos/video, you might even consider getting an external hard drive to store it all on. Then, even if you switch computers at some point, you just move it to the next one, without taking the first apart or messing with transferring via CDs.

We made it to the BabyFest! I met some nice mamas and we had a good time - 6 hours of driving and all! Now we're home and pretty sacked. I have to finish up a couple of swap packages that are due out by Monday and get them all packed up... Thankfully what's left is pretty easy - just gotta get the boys to cooperate!

The coolest thing at the BabyFest was there were several mamas from Midday Faire there. I even got to pet two BBH covers! They were both larges, though, and I don't know if Iain will EVER need a large! :LOL But we did buy a few things from the MDF folks, which was fun. One mama (from Moss Feet Shoes) came in all the way from Georgia! Oh, and DH, carrying Gabriel, and I, carrying Iain, got to be in their "baby carrier fashion show." :LOL It was funny. I didn't get to see an Ergo, though. They did have some other interesting stuff, though... will have to make those sorts of decisions later, I guess.